Crimson Nightmare
by Autumn Rain2
Summary: Myranda's family is transferred from beautiful New Midgar all the way to Nibelheim. What she finds there may awaken the brutal truth about her past-- and the past of her father.
1. Uninviting Nibelheim

Chapter 1 - Uninviting Nibelheim  
  
The very first memory I have of the mansion is stepping up it's dirty stone steps and upon the first step into the house I heard a sharp crack as my foot hit the threshold. Rotting grey wood splintered away from under my black patent leather boot. I turned to glare at my father. I would have said something spiteful but I'd stopped speaking to him since he warned me that we were moving. That was a week and a half ago. He'd made me leave our beautiful apartment in New Midgar, from the top floor that overlooked the shining mirrored buildings of the big city, and planted me out on another less developed continent in the tiny mountain town of Nibelheim. My anger was quickly moved to the back burner as I was pushed through the door by my father's strong hand. He glanced about the dark and empty foyer under his shock of red hair. The dank smell of mildew was overpowering and I covered my nose and mouth while looking around. Dark, gaunt shadows clung to the painted wooden walls, and sunlight filtered through the grimy windows.   
"Can we get some light?" My mother's timid voice came from the doorway where she clung to my father's arm and stepped daintily over the splintered threshold. My father literally hit the light switch with a smack from the flat of his hand. The eerie chandelier style lights hung from the beams of the great 20-foot ceiling. Pale light flickered into the room and slid the shadows to the floor under and behind the old grandfather clock and circular array of chairs and couches- all donned with about an inch of dust. The newest thing in the room seemed to be the lamps themselves. I guessed that candles were probably used originally. The dust reminded me of how much I hated the place and I turned to my father.   
"Why did we even come here!?" I shouted.  
He opened his mouth, his eyes not changing from the ever sarcastic expression. I started running across the foyer. "Well I don't even want to hear it!"  
Now that I look back on it, there was no sense in me asking if I wasn't going to listen to what he had to say. I jumped up on the first stair on the right side of the double staircase. The threadbare crimson carpet tore under my feet. "Myranda."  
I turned to the source of my father's icy voice. His strained blue eyes looked deathly serious, as usual. "Be careful, this place is old. Don't go running around."  
I sighed, smirked, and stomped deliberately up the stairs. The top of the stairs led to a hall flooded with greenish light from the tall grimy windows that lined it. Rod iron adorned the rounded tops of the windows and on the opposite side of the hall, matching raining was present. I walked to peer over the rail at my parents, who were arguing now. I went up another small flight of stairs and explored the third story rooms. After little exploration I found the room I liked best. It smelled the least stuffy of all of them and it was round with windows all the way around the room and a little bay window But there was no bed, so it would have to become my study instead. I would take the bedroom beside it. Dusty pillows were stuffed in the bay window that looked out over a huge backyard full of dark tree skeletons. I examined the backyard for a while, and after I'd grown bored with the view I walked back downstairs to find my parents.  
"I'm not sleeping in that old bed, you know." I stated bluntly to the empty foyer. I hadn't even seen the bedroom yet, but I figured that it would be old and gross.   
"It's a new matress and sheets." My father called from the stairs. I turned around as he was leading my mother out of a second floor room. He looked at me impatiently when they hit the bottom step. "It's a little fixed up, you know. To living standards anyway. No more bugs or rats." I wrinkled my nose as he walked away and my mother approached me. A slightly despaired look in her Caribbean blue eyes was masked behind the calmness of her smooth southern voice.   
"Myranda, hun, we're only going to live here for about a year at most. Can't you see we can't help it? It's for your father's job, and you know that Shinra is focused on the good of the world."  
I exhaled and looked skeptical.   
"Well I'm paid to say things like that! Just don't ask questions. Not now."  
"Can we at least go shopping today? My room looks like something out of a bad black and white movie."  
"You've chosen a room?"  
She didn't argue because she didn't want me to throw another temper tantrum, and before I knew it we were driving down Nibelheim's cobblestone roads. The jerking of the car was annoying as it attempted to slam my head into the window, and I wondered if it would be easier to just walk.  
"This town isn't very big, is it?" I commented as I watched the townhouses and shops meander by.  
"It's nearly tripled in size since 18 years ago."  
"When did you come here?"  
"About three years before I met your father."  
  
I raised an eyebrow as I did math in my head and things weren't adding up. "So you're saying you met my father fifteen years ago and I'm seventeen now?"  
"I work in Shinra's demographic department, you know."  
"Sorry, I guess I just figured that was only for New Midgar.."  
"You need to start learning that the world doesn't revolve around New Midgar. And it certainly doesn't revolve around you!"  
I rolled my eyes. How many times had I heard it? Seriously..  
  
People looked at us strangely in the shops we went to. I guess they could tell we were from out of town. One woman asked a lot of annoying questions as I was looking for some pillows for the bay window. She wanted to know who we were, where we were from, if we were the ones living in Shinra Mansion (It's haunted, she says),and my favorite question of all: how were we related?   
I hadn't inherited a single one of my mother's beautiful facial features. Her hair was a shimmering honey color and mine was brown. Her eyes were Caribbean blue while mine were rusty colored. I'd inherited my father's face shape and lean stature. He said I was a spitting image of my grandmother on my mother's side... before she was killed in a horrible train wreck in North Corel. As twilight began to dance on the rooftops of the town, things started closing. Unlike New Midgar where everything was open 24 hours. We had to return to the mansion with our purchases. I bought a lamp, small bookcase, and a ton of pillows for the bay window. I spent the early evening throwing away those rotting pillows and stuffing the window seat with the fresh new ones. I tried cleaning the dirty glass windows of my round room, but the greenish grime stayed put. It must have been on the outside. As I left the window and laid down that first night to go to sleep, I hadn't paid much attention to my bedroom. When I closed my eyes I had the creepiest feeling that someone was watching me. I guess the old lady at the shop got me paranoid about the old mansion being haunted. I snickered and commented to myself, "Yeah.. Haunted by the Mold Monster maybe."  
But I got out of bed anyway and flicked the light on. Nights in Nibelheim were cold, even in August, because the draft from the cracks of the window cut through my white satin night gown.   
Shivering, I made my way back to the bed when I noticed something peculiar about the carpet. By the window a perfect square was impressed into the threadbare patterned carpet. It was much cleaner than the other areas of the room. Something heavy must have sat there for a long time. But what would be so big? A refrigerator? A bookshelf? Now that I was looking so closely at the carpet I looked around for anything else suspicious. The carpet was a dark red with gold patterns, but I noticed some dark stains in front of the square in an awkward, random pattern. I hastily stood and ran back to my bed, pulling the covers up around my neck. I didn't want to know or ask what those stains were.   
The light of the overhead lamp bounced dully off the dirty yellowed window. Maybe I didn't just not want to be here, maybe no one else wanted me here either. Maybe the mansion hated me as much as I hated it. At the time I wasn't sure why but everything about this town seemed suddenly uninviting. 


	2. The Tunnel

Chapter 2 - The Tunnel  
  
Everything in Nibelheim was insanely small. There were maybe twenty kids that went to the school there, but since I'd already surpassed their levels the principal told me it would do absolutely no good to go there. The mansion was so boring that I liked to escape it, even if it was just for a few hours. Plus the perfect grades wouldn't look bad on my record. So I hung out with the kids at school sometimes. The school system at New Midgar was the best in the intercontinental system and I was sure to let everyone know that I'd attended the best schools in the world. They labeled me a snob very quickly. Most of the kids hated me there and but a few liked me because they thought my clothes were cool. After a few days of going to school I realized that I was being stalked by a gothic looking girl who seemed obsessed with the fact that I lived in Shinra mansion. She'd asked if I'd seen any ghosts yet. I rolled my eyes and walked away. The school itself was about a half mile down the road from the mansion's front gate. It was a nice little walk and I could use the exercise-and the fresh air.   
One day on my way home I noticed a man in a black suit standing at the gate of the mansion. When I got closer I realized he was wearing the Shinra emblem on his suit.   
"Let me through."  
"I'm sorry, ma'am, you need proper authorization to..."  
I knew that voice. That was a voice from the past.   
"James Tai. How's that for authorization?"  
He pushed his black shades down to the bridge of his nose to look at me suspiciously before his face broke into a lopsided grin. "Myranda. Sorry, my bad. Don't tell your father about this, huh?"  
He looked around before continuing, "I'll walk you in."  
I thought I'd strike up a little petty conversation before getting to the big question.  
"How's your uncle?"  
"Oh, he's doing okay. They moved him over to Wutai, you know."  
"Really? Looks like they're moving all the Shinra officials somewhere." Now I had to wonder what was up. James father, Tseng, was the primary executive of the entire Shinra corporation, outranked only by the president and vice president.   
We walked up the stone pathway and to the door, guarded by two more suits. The let us pass.   
"So why are you here?"  
James hesitated. "I.. don't think I can tell you that, ma'am."  
"Don't call me ma'am I'm three years younger than you."  
He winked and escorted me into my fathers office. Now he'd irritated me. I didn't smile at his wink. If he were any kind of friend at all he'd have told me. Someone stopped me at the door to the office. "I don't think I can allow anyone entry here."  
"You're gonna allow me entry, this is my house! I demand to see Reno."  
He jumped back and I stormed into the office, then pushed my way to his desk. He stood to look down at me. My father's presence struck a secret fear into the hearts of almost all the men present in the mansion, and probably my mother too. He used to intimidate me as well, but not anymore.   
"What's going on? Why are all these Shinra creeps here?"  
"We have a few men here from Daddy's business," he replied with his usual cold sarcasm. "Stay out of the way, eh?"  
"I'm not a child, Reno." I spat and something in his grey blue eyes flickered with anger. Every once in a while I could really get a reaction out of him.   
Slamming his palm on his desk, he looked up at James. "Please escort Miss Myranda out of my office," He hissed through gritted teeth. " I'll teach her to respect her elders when I have enough time for her."  
James took my arm and I slapped his hand away.  
"Don't bother," I muttered as I stormed out of the office, giving the doorway a little kick. The wood splintered slightly and my father let out a grunt of concealed rage.  
I flew up the stairs, mostly for show to let the Shinra men know that I didn't welcome them at all. They were everywhere upstairs. I flew through the kitchen to a back storage room which was, thankfully, very empty. Panting, I wasn't done with my fit of rage. I kicked an empty barrel over, sending it clattering to the floor, then turned around giving the wall a big spin kick with my right boot. "I hate this house!!"   
I felt the stone give way. I couldn't believe that even the stone walls were that weak. With any luck the entire mansion would fall down around us and crush everyone but me. And maybe my mother.   
I fell to my knees, completely drained. Wiping the angry tears from my eyes I looked at the wall. Something was curious about the way it had just cracked like that. Upon closer inspection I found that the crack ran right down the middle of a row of large grey stones. About 21/2 feet away another straight line appeared in the stones. The more I pushed on one side the more the other pushed forward. I realized this was some sort of panel, which was slightly disappointing because I was thinking that I had some sort of super strength. When I put all my weight on one side the panel revealed a dark tunnel that seemed to go on forever. I just sat there for a moment. Who knew what was behind the wall? Dead people? Gold? Mold?   
"Mold, no doubt," I muttered before crawling into the tunnel. I left the panel open because it seemed to be my only light source. Crawling on my hands and knees along the cold brick floor below me, I felt myself shaking either from overexertion or fear. The tunnel stunk worse than the rest of the house.  
"Smells like something died down here."  
I balked at my own words mentally. Suddenly, the stone changed to descending wooden planks as a spiral staircase came into my sight. I stared into the void to see where the stairs led, but they disappeared into pitch black nothingness after a few feet. A scuttling noise came from somewhere below me and I jumped back, hitting my head on the top of the tunnel. "Oh, bloody hell!"  
I Scooted backwards frantically and came sliding out of the tunnel back first. I ran back to the kitchen as I dusted my butt off. There was something very strange about the Shinra mansion, other than the fact that it was a colossal heap of rotting wood and spooky décor. I'd have to investigate later. As I flew out of the kitchen I ran right into A man in a Shinra suit. His brown hair was tied back in a ponytail and he looked like he was trying to be my father and failing miserably. He stared and I stared back. Awkward silence ensued.   
"What are you staring at?!" We cried in unison.  
Then, embarrassed we both walked away. I retreated upstairs to my round little room and thought about the tunnel as I sat in the bay window. It was the best I ever felt about the hellish place, and the best that I ever would. I was excited about that discovery and wondered what kind of treasure I'd find. I remember that for a while I considered that Shinra was on a materia hunt and it was hidden down those stairs. Rooms of shining materia. Not that I believed in the magic crystals anyway, because mother always told me that it was a myth used in stories.   
The men in the house were fairly quiet that night, apparently respecting my mother's wish to let me sleep. But I heard heated voices from somewhere below me. Putting my ear to the floor resulted in nothing, but as I went back to the window I realized it was coming from the balcony on the second floor. If I stood on my knees in the splintered wooden window seat and pressed my forehead to the glass I could see the balcony below me. I flicked off the lights, so they wouldn't see me, and watched as my father argued with James.   
"I told you to seal up the passage."  
"I did. I put a barrel in front of it too."  
"It was open. Someone went down there. Who knows what Hojo put down there!?"  
He sighed and ran his fingers through the strands of red hair that were always in his face before continuing.  
"You're worthless. There's a traitor among us at Shinra. He's in this very mansion."  
"Who is it?" James looked uneasy.  
"Only one way to find out."  
I never saw the gun until James collapsed. I could barely here the zing of the silenced bullet. I just sat there, watching in horror as the blackish blood spread around his body on the wooden floor of the balcony. It shone sickly in the light from the pale crescent moon.   
Another man in uniform ran out onto the balcony and my father holstered his gun.  
"Clean this up."   
The man slung James's body unceremoniously over his shoulder as my father exited the scene.  
Sobbing, I ran to my bedroom and hid under the quilt. My nose was running and every time I rubbed the tears away they were replaced. My eyes wouldn't shut, they just kept staring and I'll I could see was James lying in the lake of his own blood. My father killed him. The shock was too much for my mind to handle. I couldn't understand it. My father killed him. Why? Why would he do something like that? My father took his life. But he wasn't evil. My daddy wasn't evil. And James wasn't a bad person. I used to have the biggest crush on him. His smile was radiant, and he looked so unique with his almost-black hair and bright blue eyes. He gave me a diamond necklace for Christmas once. I still wear it.   
That's when it dawned on me. It was my fault that he was killed. If I'd minded my own business and never opened that panel, or if I'd just shut it once I left, none of this would have happened.  
If he found out that it was me, my father would probably kill me as well.  
"Myranda?"  
His deep flat voice at the door startled me. I jumped up, frantically rubbing my face.   
"What!?"  
"I wanted to talk to you for a minute."  
He'd seen me, I knew he'd seen me. Or worse yet he knew I was in the tunnel. I opened my bedroom door and stared at him, shaking and afraid.  
"What's your problem?" He asked as one of his dark brows raised quizzically.  
"I hate it here! that's my problem, you bastard!"   
He calmly backhanded me with a flick of his wrist.  
"I know you know better than to talk to me like that."  
I winced at the metallic taste in my mouth. "Yeah, sorry. What do you want to talk to me about?"  
"That's my girl. Now, you're going to have to be on your best behavior now that the Shinra suits are bopping around here. And uh.. keep your door locked."  
He turned to leave, then stopped as if he'd just remembered something. My heart froze.   
Whirling around, he grabbed my chin and tilted my face up to meet his icy glare.   
"And don't go snooping around."  
"Yesh shir," came my muffled reply before he released me and patted me on the head.  
I'd never been so relieved as when he shut my door. Something about this mansion woke up the inner ass in my father, and I wasn't liking it. I'd have to stay out of his way, but that tunnel was calling me.. 


	3. The Treasure Box Below

Chapter 3 - The Treasure Box Below  
  
The next morning I went to the café down the street to eat breakfast with my mother. I'd already told myself that the events of last night were nothing but a dream.   
"Mom, I really don't like having all those guys in the house."  
"I don't either. Especially with a pretty girl like you around. You should just find a place to stay out of everyone's way."  
"That round room is really nice."  
"Oh, the atrium? Is that where you always are?"  
She brushed the crumbs from her cake donut off her white lab coat.   
"It's an atrium?"  
"Note all the windows." She smiled.  
"Hey, Mom? Can you tell me what's going on with Shinra?"  
Her smile quickly faded. Apparently, there was a war inside her mind between her daughter and her job.   
"If you promise not to use the information you receive, I'll tell you."  
I just waited, since that was a stupid question anyway.  
"Well Shinra is expanding. We're looking to erect new headquarters in all the major cities of the world."  
"And this is a major city of the world?"  
"Well, yes and no. It's not very big. However, it used to be important to Shinra back in the days of the..." She trailed off there.  
"Of the what?"  
"The.. War," She stated, then reassured herself, "of the war."  
I nodded. Couldn't argue with that.  
"So that's why Uncle Tseng is in Wutai."  
"How do you know that?"  
"James told me." Now my mind snapped back to James's body on the balcony and I felt my stomach tighten.   
"James is here?" My mother asked.  
Suddenly I lurched forward and vomited up all of my breakfast on the café table. Needless to say, we were escorted from the building.  
My mom had no idea why I got sick and now she probably thought I was pregnant or something. She sent me to bed when we got home, but I was too afraid to sleep. I was afraid last night too. Afraid of my dad coming back to kill me because he thought that I was the traitor.   
Nothing that my mother had said had really explained why Shinra was here. Sometimes I wondered why Shinra even existed. Because everything my parents ever said about it was 'we're here for the good of the world' but they never said exactly what they were doing to help the world.   
I sat up and took another drink of bottled water. The water in the mansion was so dirty that it would probably kill me if I drank it. We had to get someone to bring buckets of water from another house if we wanted to take a bath. I wasn't feeling sick, to tell you the truth, it was just the image that flashed into my head was so real. It wasn't a dream I'd had about James and I knew it.   
Pulling the thick blue quilt back, I stood up and pulled off my nightgown. Mom made me change into it as soon as we got home. She told me I should sleep until the afternoon, but I think she really wanted an excuse to keep me locked up in my room. After I got dressed, I walked down the hall to the atrium where the morning sun was glaring through the windows. Someone's silhouette was in front of the large bay window.   
I shaded my eyes. "Um, who the hell are you?"  
The same man I'd run into the day before turned around.  
"Well who the hell are you?"  
"I asked you first."  
"I asked you second."  
I stared at him a minute, sizing him up. He seemed older than James was. Maybe the late twenties. He had one hand in his pocket and he was definitely copying my father's stance.   
"You're pretty childish for a Shinra man. You know Reno would never say anything like that."  
"So? Reno's just a self-absorbed control freak."  
"Can I tell him that?"  
"No, wait! This place isn't bugged, is it?"  
Smirk. "Yeah it is. I'm the bug. I tell my dad everything."  
"Really?"  
"No. What's your name?"  
"Why? What's your name?"  
"You're a cocky little bastard."  
"My name is Chad."  
"Okay cool. Well. Go away."  
"Why?"  
"Because this is my place."  
"But I like the window room."  
"It's called an atrium, dumbass." I may have only known that for a number of hours but now it seemed like common knowledge.  
"Atrium? Isn't that part of the heart or something?"  
We argued about that for a good fifteen minutes and then he had to leave because he was due to meet with my father downstairs. That was a shame, because I was really starting to like Chad. He was as much of a brat as I was. I stared out the bay window for a minute and then went downstairs to the round dining room, and walked out onto its balcony. I looked up, unable to see into the window above. That was a good sign. There was no trace of blood on the balcony at all. This was strange because the wood was so old it would probably be stained by anything. Running my hand along the rod iron guardrail, I wondered about the 'traitor'. What was he doing? Why was he even a threat if Shinra didn't do anything besides 'help the world become a better place'? What was downstairs? That's when I made the decision. I had to find out what was down those stairs. James's death could not be in vain.  
It was mid afternoon when I walked into the kitchen, then through to the storage room. I looked around, to make sure no one saw me as I stole an emergency flashlight from the utility closet. With a firm kick, the panel twirled around and gave entrance to the passageway. It was now or never. I flicked the flashlight on and knelt down. After crawling into the tunnel, I pulled the panel shut. A shiver slid down my spine as the tunnel was closed up. I had never been a claustrophobic person until that very moment. The thin yellow beam of the flashlight pierced the blackness about five feet ahead of me. As I reached the staircase, I shone the light down its twisted path. It seemed to be nothing but a corkscrew staircase going straight down into the abyss of hell. But I started down anyway.  
"If it gets too bad, I'll just go back up," I told myself.  
The wooden plank stairs threatened to break multiple times on the way down as I finally caught a glimpse of the stone hallway below; I put my foot where there should be a step. Apparently, one of the planks had fallen away from its rod iron brace, and I tumbled down the next five until I landed on my behind on the cold stone hallway. At about that time something crawled across my leg. I shone the flashlight and the beam caught two beady red eyes. I screamed, scaring the rat back into a hole between the stones of the wall.   
"No more rats and bugs, huh!?"  
Grabbing the wall for a brace, I pulled myself up and hit something hard on the wall. Suddenly greenish fluorescent lights dimly illuminated the corridors of the basement. Now I wondered how old the place really was. Maybe it was just supposed to look old. Doors lined the hallway, and I stepped up to the first one I saw. Pushing the weathered oak door open, I saw rows upon rows of bookshelves and long lab tables. What a library. I walked into the dark room cautiously and as I did the fluorescent lights sprung to life. The tabletops were empty, with less dusty shapes on every surface-evidence of what was once there. I walked to the bookshelves, still stocked full of books, and read the binding on one. Scratchy handwriting read 'Jenova Project: Week 22'   
"Jenova?"  
Something about that name was eerily familiar. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I shouldn't be in this room; I shouldn't be down here at all. I turned quickly and ran out the door. As I did the lights in the library flickered out. I was on my way back to the stairs when I saw a larger door with a single stone step leading up to it. A skeleton key was in the keyhole. I approached the step curiously, and blew some misty cobwebs away from the key and the doorknob. As I turned the key there was a metallic clank and the door opened. Like the last room, the lights turned themselves on when I entered. This room was filled with a bunch of black tables.. or.. something. The center table was very strange. It was nailed together hastily. I walked to it and looked under the ledge.  
"Hey, this isn't a table, it's a box! Maybe it's full of..."  
I trailed off as I began to imagine the hidden treasure it could behold. It could have been full of anything. I started to pry the top off the box. One nail popped free of the rotting board, then another and another until I started to realize what was so strange about this box. It had a peculiar shape, one I'd seen many times before. Narrow at the bottom, broader at the top. And as long as a man. This was no box either, it was a coffin. The air caught in my throat and I couldn't breathe. As I'd suspected, all of the 'tables' were coffins as well. I backed slowly out the door, picked up the flashlight, and ran back up the spiral staircase. Coffins.   
  
' Who knows what Hojo put down there?!'   
  
My father's voice rang back to me. Apparently something very important. And coffins.. I crawled back into the storage room, donkey-kicked the panel shut behind me, and stood. Then I walked out into the second floor hallway where I bumped into my mother.  
"Where have you been?"  
"Mom, I have to talk to you."  
"What is it?"  
"Is Reno around?"  
She gave me a look. I knew she hated it when I called him by his name. When she confirmed that we were alone, I told her about the coffins. If I knew then what I knew now I would have never told her, but I did. She stared at me in shock.   
"You went.. Downstairs?"  
I nodded.  
"Did you see anything besides coffins?"  
"No, that's all I saw." I didn't feel that the books should be mentioned. At the time, they weren't important to me.  
"Well, honey.. Many very old mansions had catacombs. They wanted to keep their deceased family close."  
Catacombs. Of course.  
"But--"  
"Myranda." She cut me off before I could mention the coffin that had been nailed shut, "Don't go snooping around down there anymore. Don't ever go down there again."  
"What's so bad about it?"  
" I heard that the basement could collapse at any moment, besides rats and dead people carry all kinds of diseases."  
I forced a smile. She was right, though. Catacombs made sense. I started on my way up to the atrium when she stopped me again.  
"And Myranda? Don't tell your father about anything you saw."  
'No problemo. I wouldn't want him to shoot me out on the balcony,' I thought.  
Too much was happening that I didn't understand. When I was little, five or six, I thought my parents literally ruled the world, because everyone we ever met treated my father as if he was a god. When I was a preteen, I accepted all the lies my parents ever fed to me. I was more concerned with boys and makeup anyway. Now that I'd seen this house and the way they were acting, I had to wonder.  
Absentmindedly I grabbed the elbow of the first suit I saw. He was carrying a stack of papers almost as high as his head.   
"Tell someone to run me a bath."  
He promised a hasty return with some clean water and I walked into the atrium. I knew it would be a while. Sitting on the edge of the bay window, I stared at the floor under my feet. A shadow was cast suddenly across my dusty boots and I gasped, looking up. It was Chad.  
"You're in my seat."  
"This is my seat."  
"I was there first."  
"No you weren't."  
"Yes I was!"  
"Chad.. I really don't feel like it."  
His heavy brows furrowed. "What's your problem?"  
"I can't tell you."  
"Why not?"  
"Same reason you can't tell me."  
"Tell you what?"  
I canted my head in a challenging manner, "What Shinra is doing."  
He hesitated, and his eyes attained an intelligent look. "Oh."  
"So you're not going to tell me, then?"  
"To tell you the truth I have no idea myself."  
He crouched in front of me and looked up. His hair didn't look so stupid anymore, I guess because the ponytail wasn't as high as it was the other day.  
I rested my chin in my hands. "Yeah right."  
"No, seriously. I'm just a peon. I do what they tell me to and that's all. I have no idea what the big bosses are planning."  
He glanced behind him and lowered his voice.  
"But I don't think it's going to be for the 'good of the world.'"  
"What does Shinra even do? I never hear any explanation other than that."  
"I can't really tell ya. The only thing I know is that Shinra doesn't give a flying fuck about the world."  
"So then.. What's all this 'expansion' business?"  
He gave me an earnest look and stood up. After watching my face for a moment he turned and walked out.  
"Yeah, thanks a lot, Chad!" I yelled after him.   
The lights downstairs were shut off and the hall light was cut too. A woman in a suit walked into the atrium to turn off the light and looked at me.   
"Oh, Miss Myranda. You should be heading to bed now. It's nearly ten."  
"I'm waiting on my bath... still."  
She nodded and left the light on, but I heard her muttering on her way out.  
The house was silent with the exception of a few scuffing footsteps as Shinra men made their way up and down the stairs in the dark. Someone knocked on my bedroom next door and I peeked out of the atrium.  
"May I help you?"  
"Your bath is full, ma'am."  
"Thank you."  
I ran to my bedroom and plucked my robe and nightgown off of my bed, pinned my hair up, then dashed across the hall to the bathroom where an iron claw foot bathtub was filled with steaming clear water. Bumping the door shut and hastily stripping my clothes off, I slid into the water and felt my muscles relax in unison. I'd nearly forgotten the luxury of my hot tub back home, but the memory came back and I sighed. I really missed New Midgar. I'd been soaking in the bath for a few minutes when I heard someone sliding around in the hall. I guess they thought they'd be quieter if they slid their feet, but it was much noisier. Shrugging it off as one of the less intelligent members of Shinra, I soaped up a rag and started scrubbing. About fifteen minutes later there was a bellow from down the hall, then a muffled grunt. I sat straight up.   
"What are those buffoons doing now," I asked myself with a big of annoyance.  
There was stomping up the stairs followed by some more stomping. Then someone was rushing down the hall. To my absolute horror, one of the double doors to the bathroom was pushed open partway. Someone had opened it, but the crack wasn't big enough to see who it was. As I was opening my mouth to shout at this horribly clumsy person, fingers poked through the crack and braced themselves on the oaken door. No, they weren't fingers at all. They were bronzy metal claws tipped in red. Tipped in blood. The light caught someone's eye behind the door. It went wide as it spied me.  
I was ready to make all kinds of snide remarks about how stupid the person was, but once I saw that claw, that blood, and that crimson eye I started screaming like a banshee. I stood up in the bathtub and grabbed the first object I saw, flinging it at the door, but by that time the door was already shut and nothing was there. I pulled my mother's hairbrush off a shelf and shoved it through the handles of the double door to brace it shut. As I saw the four crimson stains of where the bloody claws had been, I started screaming again.   
"Someone help me, help me!"  
There was violent beating on the bathroom door.  
"Oh God! Oh God! I'm going to die!"  
"Myranda it's me, goddamn it, now open the door!"  
My father's gruff voice came from the other side.  
I tossed the hairbrush away and opened the door, running into the hallway and dancing anxiously from foot to foot as I screamed my story.  
"There was a man but it wasn't a man because there were fingers but they were metal and there was a lot of blood I think he killed someone, Daddy, someone was there!"  
My father and the five Shinra security officers behind him stood staring. They all had the same peculiar look of embarrassment and shock on their faces.  
"What the hell!? Go look for him!"  
My mother appeared on the scene and she gasped.  
"Myranda! Put some clothes on!"  
The group of men scattered, looking at the ground or scratching their foreheads.  
I flushed and slammed the double doors shut   
When I'd returned to the hallway the entire mansion was ablaze with fluorescent lights. Every Shinra official in our house seemed to be gathered in the area of the staircase. On the carpet, blood was trailed from the stairs to the bathroom, then down the hall.   
I started to the staircase but Chad stopped me.   
"It's really nothing you want to see, ma'am."  
"What is it? What happened?"  
"Seems like someone was killed."  
"Who?"  
"Ronnie Sparks. Head of the records department."  
My father grumbled from behind me. "Damn, now I'm going to have to replace him and our records will be backed up for a week."   
He began to walk away and his shoes made a squishy sound as he walked past the stairs.  
"Oh and, uh.. Someone clean this up? It's really gross."  
I balked at his lack of concern. Chad took my arm.  
"Let me walk you to the atrium."  
Once we'd settled in the wicker chairs of the room, flooded with ghostly moonlight, The questions began.  
"How did he die? What killed him? What did I see?"  
"He was stabbed in the back five times. In a really weird pattern. And his throat was really cut up. His face was almost completely gone, really. The only way we identified him was by his ID card."  
"What do you mean his face was gone?"  
"I don't know. I guess he was stabbed in the face too, but this person must have been really skilled with a knife, because.."  
"Five holes?"  
"Five major holes, I guess."  
"Something opened the door while I was taking a bath. It had claws."  
"Claws? Myranda, don't make this situation any worse by adding some sort of supernatural being."  
"I'm so fucking serious, Chad. I think it scratched the door if you want proof. There was blood on it."  
He just sat in silence for the longest time. Finally he stood and broke the silence.  
"If there's anything in this house we're gonna find it, and we're gonna kill it."  
"Chad there's.. There's something downstairs. A library. Full of records, and it might give us the answer to what's happening here."  
"Downstairs?"  
"Yeah. Catacombs.. Or something."  
"Oh, no. I'm not checking out any catacombs."  
"You don't have to now. Tomorrow. In the morning."  
"When it's daylight?"  
"Right. Scary things don't happen in the morning."  
"Alright, I'll go."  
"Until then, you'd better get me a lot of coffee because there's no way in hell I'll fall asleep until that thing is dead." 


End file.
